a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a two-level scratch game to be used and sold in a lottery. The invention also relates to a method of manufacturing this two-level scratch game.
b) Brief Description of the Prior Art
Scratch games comprising a substrate on which a scratchable rub-off coating is applied in order to hide instant prices in the form of a price amount, or a game symbol which is printed directly onto the substrate, are well known and commonly used by lotteries and advertising companies for promotional purposes. With such scratch games, the play essentially consists of scratching the rub-off coating or a part thereof in order to hopefully find that one of the instant prices has been printed on the substrate. If an instant price is found, the possessor of the scratch piece wins that amount.
A game called Bingo is also well known. This game makes use of cards on which two dimensional grids .Iadd.form individual boxes. Each box has a .Iaddend.randomly selected number printed therein.[.part.]..Iadd.. .Iaddend.Bingo random numbers are drawn by some authority. A player marks the corresponding numbers on their card. In trying to get a complete horizontal, vertical or diagonal row of the numbers marked. When a player accomplishes this objective, they win a price amount that is usually predetermined before the drawing of numbers starts.
Another scratch game derived from the Bingo game has already been suggested and is presently marketed in France under the tradename GROLO. This game comprises a substrate on which has a first grid of boxes printed thereon, containing winning or losing symbols which are randomly distributed. This first grid is hidden by a scratchable rub-off coating upon which another grid is printed and superimposed over the first grid. This second grid contains numbers sequentially printed in its boxes to allow identification of the boxes. In use, a plurality of numbers are drawn at random by some authority. Then, each player scratches the rub-off coating of the boxes bearing the numbers that are drawn in order to uncover the symbols printed within the corresponding boxes of the first grid. If a given number of winning symbols are uncovered, the player will win a specific price amount.
The second grid of numbers printed on the rub-off coating of all of these games is always the same, and only the first grid of randomly selected winning and losing symbols vary from one card to the other. In addition, there is only a single way of playing this scratch game.